It is necessary to provide air ventilation of the brood chambers of a beehive throughout the entire year. In accordance with conventional practice, an outlet hole or aperture, normally about three-quarters of an inch in diameter, is drilled in the wall of the brood chamber. With this arrangement, cooler air will enter the entrance opening for the bees (located near the bottom of the hive) and the warmer air will exit through the outlet aperture.
Such convective ventilation is not always adequate. For example, during the winter, snow will cover the entrance opening and the convective air circulation is drastically reduced. Under these circumstances, many bees, sometimes the whole bee colony, may suffocate due to lack of oxygen. Another problem concerns the generation of moisture. Bees, through normal biological process, generate moisture which can build up within the hive. Prolonged, excessive moisture content in the air of the hive will seriously affect the health of the bees so that, again, some or all may die. Under some circumstances, such as discussed above, the outlet aperture is not able to exhaust the excess moisture. A further difficulty with a simple aperture is that direct wind blasts are substantially free to enter the hive through the aperture, with resultant deleterious effects.
Patents of interest with respect to the present invention include U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,927,431 (Wallace); 442,687 (Pennock); 207,731 (Gale); 80,257 (Bassett); 31,384 (Hartley et al); and 2,707 (Ross), although this listing is not represented to be exhaustive.